I want to share our journey with Hugo’s sleep habits.

I’d like to start by mentioning that you never know what kind of mother you’re going to be. I love structure and control. I’m a personal trainer - duh. I assumed I’d be back at work after 6 weeks, after Hugo. That we’d follow a sleeping plan. That I’d be able to dial down my emotions to follow a system that would make our lives easier. Well… Here I am at almost 9 months postpartum. I can’t imagine leaving Hugo for full days, and I really succumbed to my tenderness and let the baby take the lead for the most part of motherhood. As an aside, parenting will absolutely present you with the challenge and change that you will recognize, perhaps in retrospect, that you deeply need.

So. Here I was thinking Hugo would be in his crib in his room after a few weeks. And low and behold, we co-slept for 6.5 months. You begin to learn as a mother that your gut is your strongest attribute. You have to move along in a way that feels right for you. Dial down the outside noise, turn up that gut volume. I don’t have any regrets about sleeping beside Hugo for 6.5 months. It worked for us… until it simply didn’t. Sure, I was feeding too often during the night. He was waking frequently. In the beginning, your magic hormones somehow have you powering through your days on very little sleep and not terribly affected. But I guess they start to dwindle, that and the whole frequent-feeding-on-demand system feels no longer necessary, and just like a habit. I knew he wasn’t needing these feeds, and it was time to start to establish a better routine.

I didn’t know where to start. There are dozens of reputable specialists and programs to choose from. But from my experience, purchasing a high-profile plan does not work well for me. I wanted to speak with a human, I wanted a customized path. An adaptive, empathetic approach.

(A client couriered me the Taking CaraBabies manual, but I stopped reading at “your child may cry for 140 minutes the first or second night.” Much thanks to him, but it just wasn’t right for us.)

I needed a grey area between crying it out and co-sleeping. I needed my approach to align with my gut, but with professional direction. I didn’t want an e-book, and I didn’t want a full on consultant who comes and takes over, and costs in the thousands. I posted on the Rebel Mamas Facebook Group and got more responses than I could manage to investigate.

Maila of Sleep Secrets wrote me a message, and her introduction touched on the details I was after. Little to no stress for the baby. No crying it out. It is perfectly doable. Here are my packages. “This is the one for us,” I decided.

We had an introduction call, and had instant rapport. She was calm and confident, and clearly experienced. She aligned with my feelings about keeping stresses low and transitions courteous. She knew I wanted to be responsive, for Hugo to know we were always there and he didn’t just have to figure this out on his own. We chose a $250 package that featured a customized plan and 4 weekly phone calls.

We filled out a questionnaire answering all about our current routine and habits, as well as outlining our goals.

We had been:

winging it!
no solid bedtime / sleep routine
skipping a third nap, following Hugo’s lead (he didn’t know what he needed!)
waiting for his evening energy to die down before bed
co-sleeping
feeding on demand

Our goals were:

get him sleeping in his crib
get him sleeping in his own room
fewer night wakings
to feel as little stress and separation as humanly possible

We recruited Maila days before Christmas, and Hugo had his first full night in the crib on Christmas Eve. At my parents’ house, no less! How nice it was for Guillermo and I to wake up Christmas morning having had the bed to ourselves for the first time in about 7 months, and to a very rested, happy baby!

Maila helped us to identify that Hugo’s evening energy was a result of being overtired. His wake windows were too stretched out. By making sure he was tired for bed, we were in fact setting ourselves up for failure. The more rested the baby is, the better the baby rests. Hugo needed customized wake windows because he tends to need more sleep in the first half of the day. But by adding this third nap back in, following recommended wake windows to a tee and establishing a solid wake routine, we saw a complete change in our baby.

Before every nap and every bedtime, we read 3 books to Hugo, turn on the sound machine and sing 2-3 songs. Because of the wake windows, we found his sweet spots for naps and sleep and the process worked surprisingly seamlessly. I believe that by having co-slept for so long, we established a great feeling of security and stability in our son. He was happy, confident and felt safe. So when we transitioned into promoting independent sleep, he felt ready.

By two weeks, Hugo was sleeping in his crib, in his own room.

These days, he is going to bed between 6pm-7pm, and waking once for a feed around 4-5am. I am okay with this, as I think it’s difficult for most people to go 12 hours without a feed, let alone tiny, rapidly-growing humans! He is using a soother to get to sleep. This is another “sleep crutch”, but one I didn’t feel right taking away. I tried for two naps one day, and he was choke-crying wondering why such a sudden change. He is still a wee guy who seeks some extra comfort, while sleeping alone in a crib and alone in a room. We left the soother for now, and just hope we won’t have a terrible time removing it at a later date. He often spits it out after falling asleep, but does pop it back in when he wakes throughout the night. Again, Maila can coach to having zero night feeds at this age and to avoiding the use of a soother, but she worked within our comfort level with zero judgments about what we preferred to do.

Recently, Hugo has started transitioning to 2 daily naps and I had no bloody idea how to shuffle things around. After a couple of clumsy, disorderly and grouchy-baby days, I got on a follow-up call with Maila and she ironed out our windows and plan for us again. Boom - it worked.

This is our experience so far with Hugo’s sleep. I can’t stress enough how dramatically his personality changed when he started sleeping better. When he’s grouchy, I have an underlying stress and difficulty getting through the days. When he’s rested and relaxed, life is a dream. If you’re feeling a bit stuck or stumped, I definitely recommend reaching out for some professional guidance.

Happy baby, happy life. For real.